First of all, I'm drinking a caramel macchiato right now (which sits by the sink so when I want to take a sip I have to walk over there and then walk back to the computer) and it's pretty strong, which feels amazing. It's like I can feel the caffeine being absorbed into the individual cells of my body, which probably speaks to a) my increasingly serious psychological/physical dependence on caffeine and thus need for a detox sometime soon, and b) the fact that I really, really need to devote the time between my leaving work today and coming to work tomorrow to catching up on sleep.
But to the main point: public transportation.
I'm a fairly vocal supporter of using public transportation, particularly because the more people use it, the better-funded (and therefore cleaner and more efficiently run) it is. I take the bus at least twice a day, from home to school and back again, and for the most part, I'm very impressed with Seattle's Metro bus system. However. However! Once in a while the stars align in a particular way and I wind up on the bus to Crazytown.
This morning, for example, I was waiting for the 8:36 headed to the University District, and, from a distance, saw the bus approaching. I wait for the bus, it should be mentioned, like a sailor's wife waiting at the docks to see her husband's ship come over the horizon. It's all very exciting and full of breathless anticipation--the little things, really, are what break up the drudgery of the day. So, after two or three buses that were not mine had passed, I saw it headed down the street . . . and then I watched as it drove past me, screeching to a halt about halfway down the block. In retrospect, this should have been my first clue that I was about to step onto the Nightmare Bus. One other woman and I took off jogging as the doors opened. She stepped on, and the driver began to close the doors as I reached the front entrance.
"Wait, what?!" I exclaimed. I'm sure I looked terribly indignant. He let me on. I had, I guess, delayed the driver enough to allow another rider on the bus, which I am counting as my Good Deed of the Day (I will spend the rest of the day sleeping and watching baseball). We drove off. For the rest of the commute, the driver operated the bus as if he had just been exposed to the concept of a brake pedal for the first time. It was not unlike being in the car with a really terrible fourteen-year-old Drivers' Ed student behind the wheel--he would accelerate steadily as he left one stop and drove to another, slamming on the brakes at the last second. A few times, he did this behind a row of cars as a traffic light changed colors. I was pretty sure I was going to die, or, worse, be late to work.
Typically, I would excuse this sort of thing as being due to a recent adjustment from operating a car to a giant bendy bus (note: I hate bendy buses). Here's the thing, though--I've seen this driver before. Was he drunk? Had he, like me, taken one antihistamine pill too many this morning? Was he just not paying attention? I don't know, but I am a firm believer in public transportation vehicle operators being on top of their shit (sorry, Mom), and this fellow was just not.
There are all sorts driving buses in Seattle, and most of them are perfectly capable drivers, as well as very nice people. However (the second "however" of this post, if I'm keeping track, which is fairly low where I'm concerned), some of them are very possibly insane. I have had drivers who lay on the horn when a car in front of them actually stops at a four-way stop (imagine the nerve! scandalous!) or a pedestrian crosses at a walk, drivers who stomp on the gas pedal the moment the doors are shut (I have been sent flying down the center aisle a number of times since moving to Seattle), and drivers who try to get their passengers to answer trivia questions during the commute--no, really. That happened last month. One driver who operates a route that runs between my neighborhood and the University District scolds passengers--particularly college-age ones--for not adhering to his unwritten Code Of Riding The Bus ("Excuse me. Excuse me. You need to be standing right next to the sign on the curb and facing the street and make eye contact with me as I approach the stop."), and who takes up to five-minute gas-station stops to buy a large soda midway through his route. I got him twice in one night last week, and again yesterday.
I'm not sure how much of this is due to the elevated level of crazy on which Seattle drivers already operate anyway. There really are more reasons why I don't drive in Seattle other than that my car is still in Michigan. I have navigated the Dan Ryan Expressway in rush-hour traffic with minimal psychological Sturm und Drang, but when I'm behind the wheel in Seattle, I frequently fear for my life. If the drivers were consistently either aggressive or overly passive, I would know what to expect, but when driving down I-5 there is no telling whether the person behind me will tailgate me while leaning into their car horn or the person beside me will change lanes in front of me with no signal. On numerous occasions, I have come about eight inches from being mowed down by a sedan while using a marked pedestrian crosswalk and making eye contact with the driver. After the first couple of times that happened, I started to stare down the driver as he approached the walk, alpha wolf style--That's right, [expletive deleted], take me down and then try to pretend later that you didn't see me. I'll take a broken leg if it means you get to pay off my grad school loans.
So far, it's worked.
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